


We Shall All Be Healed

by DeathByFluteConcerto



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drabble, F/M, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, They're good at the hurt part but real bad at the comfort part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 08:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathByFluteConcerto/pseuds/DeathByFluteConcerto
Summary: Kaz goes to see Inej in the ICU.





	We Shall All Be Healed

By the time Kaz made it to the ICU, they had handcuffed Inej to the bed. 

There was an IV in her arm, dripping quietly. It made Kaz shudder to see how pale that arm was, to think about her cold body. There were other tubes, going into her and out from her, that he couldn’t bear to look at. They had wrapped her head in gauze, the bandages stark white against her inky hair. One of her eyes was covered, and the other closed. 

_She’s as still as death._

Kaz tried to shake the thought from his brain, before the water rose up and pulled him under. He turned away, casting his eyes around the antisceptic ICU. The bright, blank, whiteness of the space made him feel like some kind of underground creature, as though he had emerged from a black cavern and into the harsh light of the upper world for the first time. 

It was too much. He whirled back towards the door, ready to flee the room, but was startled to find his path interrupted by a smiling nurse. 

“It’s lights out.” She was pushing something on a cart. Something sharp and shiny. He looked away. He was embarrassed that he had to look away. 

The nurse crossed to Inej’s arm and injected whatever the sharp and shiny needle held into Inej’s IV. Kaz watched the nurse sharply, expression as sharp as the beak of a crow. The nurse simply smiled again. 

“It’s only medication.” As she pulled the needle out, the handcuff clinked against the metal rail of the bed. She paused. “You don’t have to leave, but let her sleep.” 

The nurse left efficiently, her cart bound for other patients. The lights went out. The glow from the streetlight cast Inej’s face into shadow. Without the brightness, Kaz could almost relax. He finally settled into a chair by her side, slowing his breathing to match the nearly invisible rise and fall of her chest. Her hand, bound and bandaged and paler than it should ever have been, lay limp on the sheets in front of him. He could reach out and take it. He could lean down and kiss it. He was surprised to find that he wanted to. 

He slumped down, leaning his head forward until he was less than an inch away. He could feel his breath glancing back on his own face from her palm. He sat like that, in the quiet and the dark, as close to her as he had ever been. And then she stirred. 

“Kaz?” she whispered, or whimpered. He sat up with a start, tried to look collected. Trying to look like anything he wasn’t seldom worked with Inej, but she didn’t comment on his closeness. “What are you doing here? What do you want?” 

_You, Inej. You._

“Information.” He said, coldly, crossing his legs neatly and sitting as straight as a bar. “I want to know who did this to you. When. Why.” She watched him with her one eye. He could tell he was as transparent to her as ever, even in the dark and the fog of bandages. He tried not to let it bother him. “I know you have questions too.” 

Inej didn’t change expression, simply watched him. He was struck by the grace of her gaze, unaffected by the indignity of her situation. Under her stare, he suddenly felt as exposed as he had under the hospital lights, like some kind of cave-dwelling anomaly under the light of a microscope. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want her staring at him. Just not the way she was looking at him now. He didn’t know how he wanted her to look at him. He had wanted to kiss her hand. He still wanted to kiss her hand. Saints, he hated feeling vulnerable, but Inej brought it out of him like no one else. He felt adrift in her company, alien to the emotions that came with it. 

But he knew that deep down, under the persona and the responsibility and the darkness he wore like a blanket, he didn’t want to come back to shore. 

“Kaz…” she said, her voice light, accompanied by the rustling of sheets as she shifted slightly in her bed. She sounded fragile and faint. He wanted to break something. She continued. 

“Do you ever think about what you’ll do when all this is over?” 

He laughed, a sharp bark in the gloom. It wasn’t the question he had been expecting. But he should know Inej by now. 

“Oh, you know me,” he said through a grin. “I’m going to buy the Barrel and sleep on a pile of money every night. Like one of the dragons in the stories Nina likes to tell.” He extended his arms with a flourish, imitating a dragon’s wings. “All who come to take my hoard will face my wrath!” 

He wanted to see her smile. She did, for a moment, but it didn’t reach her still staring eye. He sighed. She had pulled him into the above world, and theatrics wouldn’t work. They belonged with the darkness, in the gloom of the cavern he had been pulled from. They were for the Dregs, for the Barrel. He pulled his arms back in and settled into his seat, almost curling in on himself. 

“What about you?” he asked softly, avoiding her gaze. Avoiding the question. “After this, after your vengeance quest. When your work is finally done?” 

That was enough to lift her scrutiny off him. She stared wistfully at the ceiling for a long time. He almost thought she had gone back to sleep when she spoke again. 

“Have you ever been to the desert, Kaz?” 

He snorted. “You know I’ve never left this Saintsforsaken island.” 

“We took the caravans on a route through the Ravkan desert sometimes. It felt vast and empty in the night—it was darker than anywhere I’ve ever been. As quiet as death. And the stars, brighter than all the streetlamps in Kerch. They shone like teeth in the mouth of a shark. That’s where I’ll go when my work is done.” 

“To the desert? To watch the stars?” 

“To hear the quiet. To be at peace.” She smiled, turning back to look at him. “You could come with me, you know.” 

“Oh, we could bring the whole crew.” He grinned wolfishly. “Watching Matthias deal with desert heat is a spectacle I’d pay to see.” 

“I like the idea of just you and me.” Her words were soft, but they knocked the breath out of his chest. A smile, a real smile, danced on the edges of her face. 

“What use would that be? Sand isn’t going to appreciate my money.” He kept his wolfish grin, looking every inch the Barrel bastard. Or trying to, at least. But again, under her gaze, he couldn’t keep it up. He faltered. 

“…what use would Dirtyhands be in the desert?” he whispered, unsure he’d said it aloud. 

Vulnerability peeked through the soft crack in Kaz’s voice. His dark hair had fallen over his eyes. He wasn’t quite looking at her, his gaze was cast just over her shoulder. To Inej, through the darkness, he almost looked innocent. She felt as though her chest would burst, feeling the way she did for this boy, seeing the anger and loss that life had found fit to gift upon him. 

“Life isn’t about use, Kaz.” She sighed, closing her eye again. Whatever they had put in her drip was taking its toll on her consciousness. “Out in the desert…wouldn’t it nice to be free of all the bonds? Of the money, and the contracts…” 

“Out in the desert, carefree?” He whispered to her. She was gone, face softened by slumber. She looked so young, just then. 

“Maybe we could try.” After all, he had come to see her up in intensive care. 

And it would be nice to be free.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the song Mole by The Mountain Goats, which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcKQVjVkXHo 
> 
> Every time I listen to it, it makes me think of these two. So I thought I'd write something for them and for this song.


End file.
